Musical storytelling: Giselle

Shostakovich called his eleventh symphony The Year 1905 after the Russian Revolution in 1905, the prelude to the October Revolution 12 years later. In actual fact, however, it was the Hungarian Uprising in 1956 against the influence of the Soviet Union that inspired the revolutionary strains. Victoria Borisova-Ollas’s newly written cello concerto Oh Giselle, Remember Me, composed for superstar cellist Truls Mørk, is based on the same story of unrequited love as the famous ballet.